I am July’s child, against my will.
I wear its sweet heaviness,
a perfume that accompanies me
throughout the seasons that I love better,
my limbs ever oppressed by the languidity
I spend all year dreading.
In the rare moments when I am not slow and care-laden,
my temper bursts forth,
with all the sudden ephemeral rage of a summer storm
before sinking back into the melancholy humidity.
The cicadas, the thunder, the happy birthday wishes—
they all pose the same question:
another year gone,
and what have you done?